As you probably noticed, I've received Ultrium drive from Y888099 (and unfortunately broke the right lock latch from my front panel during the installation ARGH).

I chose to take the drive because it is in the list of officially supported accessories - so it should just work and it looks NEAT:

However, it seems I need a "whatever-proprietary-garbage-to-molex" adapter that I can't find on eBay. It must exist, but I don't know how it is called. If you watch the embedded video here, you see the adapter hanging there: https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgece ... imedia.htm

Can you get at this assembly while its installed? I would just measure the voltages in circuit. Two of those pins are likely connected together as ground so go from there. The drive has the normal PC style power connector so we know its pinout.

robespierre wrote:So the drive isn't connected via its SCA2 port? That would provide power as well as data.The black header looks like Molex BMI, but you need to know the pinout

Not as I understand from the IBM page I linked to my original post. There's even room to get the SCSI cable around there, and something that clearly looks like a molex adapter. I would love a second opinion on the info from IBM.

astouffer wrote:Can you get at this assembly while its installed? I would just measure the voltages in circuit. Two of those pins are likely connected together as ground so go from there. The drive has the normal PC style power connector so we know its pinout.

Maybe. The angles and spaces are really tight once the whole thing is assembled. The external media bay is connected to the system via a connector on the motherboard, not via any cable, so I can't leave it hanging outside and power it on.

Y888099 sent me this picture from a HP machine, and it looks like the same thing. I just wish I knew how this is called to look for it.

I believe it's a molex cable made with standard connectors. So, you can order those connectors and try to build the cable.I wonder if the pinout of my cable works for your setup.The picture I sent you comes from HP-PA model C3600.

IBM PN 97P5354 molex cable did the trick - the one I got from eBay days ago.Short enough to fit in the media bay without blocking the connectors, and it ties around the SCSI cable Y888099 sent over nicely.

I'm just running my first test backups here on AIX 7.1.

I'll now start writing the scripts that will take the data from my FreeNAS box, back it up and eject the tape so I can swap them as I need. I will also figure out the way to automatically power the IntelliStation up, and turn it off after the backups are done.

If any of you have tips or best practices on dealing with tape, let me know. I'm just getting started.

Thanks for all the help, and thanks to Y888099 for the drive. You all rock!

It is gorgeous.And I got it new in the box for 300 EUR from a company that went bankrupt in the Netherlands and had them in stock.(yes, and 300 EUR for shipping 50kg, plus bribing three friends with beers to carry it four floors upstairs)